Wow! Here comes Setsuden-mushi.! Chapter 5 Parents of Setsuden-mushi 5.2 Profile of the Father of Setsuden-mushi 5.2.4 Translation & Interpretation Business and Networking
Based on the steady development of the cram school business, I set our sights on the translation and interpretation business, which we had originally hoped to do, and carefully handled even small amounts of translations. I went in and out of various companies and built up my personal network of business persons.
In 1990, I met a president of a company that wanted to expand overseas to the Philippines. I could make a good use of my personal connections I had developed with the Philippines during the previous decade of the 1980s, being able to start a woodworking business in Cebu in 1992.
I flew to the Philippines every month with the president of this company and spent two years working through the entire process of establishing a local company, acquiring land, building a factory and office, and bringing in and installing production equipment. I visited the Philippines about 50 times to finish this overseas project. A book could be written on the details of this overseas business support work alone.
Human networks are not limited to Japan. With the spread of the Internet and other technologies, national borders have become less famous, English as an international language has become more important as a negotiating tool, and people who cannot use personal computers as a tool to support business and daily life in many different ways have to live in a cramped environment.
The network of contacts in the Philippines so effective in this work had been developed over a period of about 10 years since 1980 through amateur radio without any consideration for business or profit. If I had been "business oriented" from the beginning, it might not have worked out well. It is also important to have a networking relationship that starts from the mutual self-interest.
Amateur radio is one of my hobbies, and even though we are now in the age of the Internet, I used to enjoy talking with friends overseas whenever I had time until around 2000.
Serially posted in English on Tuesdays every other week.
隔週で火曜日に英語で連載中
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